“DOWNHILL”: Chilly reception

Published February 13, 2020 by Robert W. Butler at Butler’s Cinema Scene

My rating: C 

89 minutes | MPAA rating: R

There’s a chill in the air of “Downhill,” and it’s only partly the result of five feet of perfect white powder.

Set in an Austrian ski resort, the latest from directing duo Nat Faxon and Jim Rash (“The Way Way Back”) offers Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Will Ferrell as vacationing Yanks who see the fissures in their relationship only widened by their high-altitude visit.

Billie and Pete seem pretty average.  She’s an attorney and appropriately self-assertive.

He’s some kind of executive who cannot put down his cel phone and tends to plan things out for his family — they have two tweener sons (Julian Gray, Ammon Jacob Ford) — without asking for their input. He maintains a Father-knows-best attitude behind his doofus-y exterior.

This is how they end up at a high-end resort at which the boys are the only kids in sight and the hot tubs tolerate only nude soaking.

Things come to a head when an outdoor lunch is interrupted by a controlled avalanche. The resort operators routinely set off blasts to loosen dangerous snowpack; this time the boiling wall of white comes shooting down the mountain and directly toward the diners.

Billie instinctively grabs her sons and hunkers down behind the table.  Pete grabs his phone and hightails it out of there. Turns out it’s a false alarm — just a cloud of mist reaches the visitors — but Pete’s act of cowardice will haunt him ever after.

If that setup sounds familiar it’s because “Downhill” is a remake of the Swedish film “Force Majeur.” That 2014 effort has been described as a comedy, though it is so brutally honest that laughing at it requires an act of bravery (a film NOT  to be seen with your spouse).

This American remake is, as one would expect from the presence of Dreyfus and Ferrell, considerably broader (or forced) in its humor.  There are overly exaggerated characters (Miranda Otto as a Teutonic vamp who preys on the rotating smorgasbord of athletic skiers). Billie is given a sexually-charged afternoon with a hunky young Italian ski instructor/masseuse (Giulio Berruti); Pete gets blotto at a noisy disco and tries to buff his tarnished manly credentials by starting a fight.

Yeah, the script takes on male ego and privilege (Pete ultimately must come to grips with his own bullheaded selfishness), but it makes for dour, unpleasant watching.

A big part of the problem is that Ferrell isn’t a subtle enough dramatic actor to navigate Pete’s roiling emotions.  Mostly he walks around with a dumb look.

Faring far better is Louis-Dreyfus, who has the range to show the conflicting impulses behind her motherly countenance.

The result is a squirm worthy film that mostly fails to deliver either laughs or drama.

| Robert W. Butler